Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely.
This publishes five days weekly with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).

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23.2.13

If anybody had any doubts that Gov. Bobby
Jindal seeks to change Louisiana’s political culture, his latest
budget should dispel those, but his administration must act fast to make it
work.

Even as anticipated state-based revenues, a little from the general
fund but most of it coming from dedicated sources, increase somewhat, the drop
in federal funds, courtesy of the changing of the Medicaid disbursement
formula, totals even more meaning a budget about a billion bucks smaller, or
roughly 4 percent reduction. Naturally, the two areas seeing the most dramatic
changes are those whose funding makes up the vast majority of discretionary
general fund spending, health care and higher education – but in very different
ways.

Higher education sees a stunning over 70 percent drop in general fund
revenue, although when all means of financing are included it’s only about 7
percent (year-to-year; most of that already has been cut). Still, this
represents a tectonic movement in the philosophy behind funding, for it
represents the first overall drop in years – at $2.7 billion total funding is
about the same as it was in the last
year of Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration – with a massive shift in state
sources. In Blanco’s last year, the general fund contributed $1 billion more
than now, and self-generated funding (mainly tuition) and statutory dedication
(some
revenue from funds dedicated to higher education but mostly fund sweeps
from funds unrelated to higher education) have added back in half of that each.
From general fund money comprising nearly half of all spending on higher
education six years ago, it’s now only about a tenth. As a point of reference,
this means using as an example my home institution, Louisiana State University
Shreveport will be asked to derive about 70 percent of its revenue from tuition
and fees.

There is some merit to an early
start. After the 2011 embarrassment where state Democrats could not get a
quality candidate to run – the Democrat who ate the least amount of Gov. Bobby
Jindal’s runaway reelection dust was nearly 50 percent of the vote behind –
Edwards or any Democrat knows an early start, short of having the ability to
self-finance, will be essential to have any hope of capturing the open seat in
a state where attitudes have swung decisively against the left on a statewide
level. Edwards
is personally part of the one percent but not wealthy enough to abjure
having to call in chits and sticking out his hand for more.

But, compared to when a typical,
serious gubernatorial campaign starts, 18 months earlier? Edwards says he let
the cat out of the bag because he wanted to give an honest answer when asked
during a radio interview about his future intentions in that regard – which
nobody of voting age or older should for a moment believe. It would have been
perfectly believable had Edwards said he was giving it “serious thought” or
that he “had received a lot of encouragement to run” but left it at that. Why
let it out so far in advance, and seeming off-handedly (not in a news release
or a well-publicized news conference or rally, but to a tiny, local audience
composed almost entirely of political junkies and the bored)?

20.2.13

It wouldn’t be the first time a news
story came off as uninformed because of the reporter’s lack of knowledge.
But in reading a piece interviewing state Sen. Eric LaFleur, one gets the sense the
ignorance and misstatements in it about Gov. Bobby
Jindal’s plan to eliminate income and franchise taxes while raising sales
taxes, removing sales tax exemptions, and increasing sin taxes come at least as
much from LaFleur as maybe from the scribe – and for a reason.

This isn’t the Democrat’s first rodeo – he’s been around the
Legislature, starting in the House, since 2000 – and he now serves on both the
Senate’s Finance Committee and therefore on the Senate half of the Joint
Legislative Committee on the Budget. Yet in his published comments, both quoted
and paraphrased, he comes off as clueless about the particulars of the plan, the
impact that it will have, if not about taxation policy in the state.

For one thing, LaFleur asserted that the state portion of the sales tax
would double from four to eight percent. But there is not a suggestion anywhere
that it would come in that high. The Jindal Administration pledged
any increase to go no higher than three percent, and its latest apparent figure
is 1.78
percent higher. So, right off the bat LaFleur is misrepresenting the entire
idea.

19.2.13

Advocates of the status quo
comfortable at doing the same things that have kept Louisiana’s educational
system dysfunctional kicked
off their seven-stop gripe tour yesterday, reminding us why they cannot be
allowed to prevent beneficial reforms.

Fronted by one of the state’s two main teachers’ unions, this tour,
with a few brave exceptions, features commentary by those either directly
responsible for or who have served as fellow-traveling hacks for promoting and
implementing an ideology that has led to trashing Louisiana public education and
its a richly-deserved past reputation of failure. While any topic seemed to be
fair game, the rhetoric focused primarily on the COMPASS teacher evaluation
system now in place across the state that evaluates core subject teachers half
on the basis of quantifiable student progress, and secondarily on the
scholarship voucher program where the state pays for students in
poorly-performing public schools to attend other, almost all, private schools.

As always in these cases, the commentary that came must be translated. Regarding
COMPASS, union-bought-and-paid-for
Board of Elementary and Secondary Education member Lottie Beebe (a former
school official who soon will take over – parents be on alert – the St. Martin
Parish School District) asserted, “Teachers do not object to the teacher
evaluation process. However, we have real concerns with COMPASS.” Translation: “Teachers
don’t object to a process where only 2.38 percent of
experienced teachers get fired despite having horrendous learning outcomes.
Our real concern is that our incompetents now will be found out by COMPASS.”

18.2.13

As one might expect, with Pres. Barack Obama
not wanting to waste a crisis to extend the reach of government control, great
attention has been placed in national policy-making circles about firearms
policy since an apparently deranged individual shot up a Connecticut school. Louisiana
legislators, taking advantage of the bill prefiling for the legislative
session that starts Apr. 8, have for the most part responded with helpful
legislation as a response specifically to the tragedy but also more generally to
the larger issue of just how much and what kinds of regulation about firearms
best serves the public interest.

Most bills constitute an improvement in the public policy environment
on this issue. HB 6 by
Rep. John
Schroder would present the opportunity for off-duty law enforcement
officers to use weaponry on school grounds. This increases the chances that sufficient
firepower would be available to counter a maliciously-armed individual, that
would discourage them from thinking they can ravage a presumed and voluntarily
disarmed environment, and that would begin the process of dispelling the
fiction that is the pretend
“gun-free” zones arbitrarily imposed in the state. Hopefully, other bills
will surface getting rid of any restrictions for licensed concealed carry
permit holders in the vast majority of public spaces.

HB 8
by Rep. Jeff
Thompson would keep criminals from targeting defenseless households by
prohibiting publishing whether an address was associated with a concealed carry
permit. This would prevent the possibility of criminals getting this
information from an irresponsible public source, and picking and choosing
households to break and enter on that basis. In addition, those specifically
wishing to steal guns (few habitual criminals obtain firearms legally) could
use the information for burglary attempts.

17.2.13

Yes, we know that
poll overweighed Democrat voters. But the major lesson from the results
that showed Gov. Bobby
Jindal’s popularity undergoing a substantial slide is that demonstrates
that the slow cleansing of the populist stain in Louisiana’s political policy is
picking up in intensity, and probably even past the point of no return.

Public Policy Polling, that polls for leftist causes and candidates,
recently pegged Jindal’s approval rating at 37 percent, with 57 percent
disapproving, Even adjusting for the poll’s inaccurate sample, his approval
would probably be in the low 40s, and it certainly shows a slide in approval
from a previous poll from the group that showed a year or so ago him at 58
percent. Further, another
recent poll with likely a better sample showed him under 50 percent
approval with slightly more respondents disapproving. Clearly, something has
changed.

And that has been Jindal, with some gusto, with a reelection
mandate, last year began to become much bolder in driving a stake through
the idea that government always knows best when non-government options exist.
This threatens exactly the populist political culture in Louisiana, based upon
the notion that it is legitimate to redistribute wealth into providing jobs, goods,
and services to people that to acquire without government might make them have
to work harder, smarter, faster, or at all, from those who chose to work as
hard, as smartly, and as quickly as they could.

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